New Dating Sweetheart on the Scene – eVow

Our handy, brilliant, friendly and ever-dashing Tyler Fake-Last-Name has fixed all but one of the issues we’ve had with the new site – YAY! So – you can now subscribe to get e-mails whenever I publish. Huzzah!! Pass it on to your friends, co-workers, that weird guy who applies his chapstick slowly while staring at you at Starbucks and anyone else.

Alright – on to today’s post…

For any of you on Plenty of Fish, you may have seen the recent ads for their new partner site, eVow.

I was curious about this myself, and then when prodded by an AskSarah question from a reader (below), I decided to check it out.

Subject: Plenty of Fish isn’t for relationships?

‘Ask Sarah’ Message:POF just sent me an email advertising for their other site eVow. It clearly states it is for people “looking for relationships”.
If that’s the case then what is Plenty of Fish meant for?

Good question!

I went ahead and signed up for an account… I figured, what better way to see what this new site is all about.

eVow touts itself as a site for people who are SERIOUS about entering into a long-term relationship with someone, as opposed to just casual dating or hook-ups.

Yet, on the very first page of questions, they offer an option for …well…. NOT that. Check it out:

But, I soldiered on, partly for more answers, and partly because I really appreciated some of the questions they asked.

They posed the normal demographic questions, but they also asked about family history, in regard to long-term relationships, birth order info, how long your past relationships have lasted… and other points of reference for matching people up.

Kinda cool. And different.

So – I filled out the entire profile (which means I basically copied and pasted my OKCupid profile in, made a few changes out of some sort of internal prompting to make it even better, I suppose), added some recent photos and spun the wheel.
(Again…this is proverbial. There is no wheel. But, how COOL would THAT be??)

The site is pretty much a slightly more appealing-to-the-eye version of PlentyOfFish. Great. So – why have a sister site at all?
At least…that’s what I thought.

I got an e-mail a few moments later that shed light on their “spin” on the dating profile – and I gotta admit, I dig it.

Aha! So – that rogue choice on the first set of questions – the third one (“I am not looking to commit to a long-term relationship at the moment”) is there to WEED OUT people who are just into the casual/hook-up sorta dating.

How cool is THAT? They don’t TELL you that up front, but ostensibly they reject those people who check that box, so that the people who post profiles are all ones who are serious about finding a partner to settle down with.

I decided to go searching and see if that was the case. I just did a BASIC search, by age and zip code, and my options were pages and pages of men, ALL of whose profiles listed that they were looking for something serious.

After all that skepticism, I suppose I was wrong. Which is a good thing.

Because I LIKE this idea!

Now, if we could JUST do something like this for matters of spirituality and levels of intelligence…

So, to answer my reader’s question, …No – I suppose PlentyOfFish is NOT a place to look for relationships.

I’ve joked for a long time that it’s the “under the bridge” of the common dating sites, but I’m more sure than ever. And you know why? Because even THEY know…

Plenty of Fish wouldn’t have had any reason to launch a new site with its angle on commitment, if the original site afforded its members that option. They must’ve known what I know – that MOST of the people on that site are icky. I mean…er…. looking for something different than what the Sarah Stones of the world want.

Now, I DO have friends who I met because of PoF…but don’t kid yourself – I tease them mercilessly about the fact that they’re WAY too good to be on that site.

(And if you’re scratching your head thinking – “wait…aren’t YOU on that site? Do you think of YOURSELF as a loser?” Well, of course not. I’M on that site – for YOU! For research.
And, admittedly, in the off chance that a gem is unearthed in the sea of PoF mud…I’ll be there like the relational archeologist I am, to dig him out of the mire and call him mine.) 🙂

So – PoF knows what we’ve all already deduced…. it’s basically a cyber street corner with a few anomolous good guys/girls left. And in order to keep their ad revenue flowing in, they had to act. Hence – the new website.

So, there you have it.

If you want a no-strings hook-up (and lots of ab photos) – PoF is your spot.

If you want the ease and price point of PoF, but you’re looking for a real relationship, check out eVow. Tell ’em I sent you.

And as a finders fee……they can send me a man.

Whaaaat?

P.S. After publishing this post, I decided that, to be thorough, I really ought to check and be sure that the site delivers on its promise the OTHER direction.

So, I tried to sign up for an account using almost identical demographic information (a different e-mail address and username, obviously)…same job type, same education level, same preferences on religion/drinking/smoking/body type, etc…. the only thing different was my goal as far as commitment. I answered the questions about relationships along the lines of “I’m not ready for a long-term relationship,” and “I’m really just casually dating for now.” After going through all their preliminary questions, I got this message: